Let's Bust a Recap : Peter Pan

Peter Pan. My first read of the new year. And my, what a delightful, charming, jolly book it was to start off with.

According to Wikipedia, "J.M. Barrie first used Peter Pan as a character in a section of The Little White Bird (1902), an adult novel where he appears as a seven-day-old baby in the chapter entitled Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. Following the success of the 1904 play, Barrie's publishers, Hodder and Stoughton, extracted chapters 13-18 of The Little White Bird and republished them in 1906 under the title Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, with the addition of illustrations by Arthur Rackham. [J.M. Barrie] returned to the character of Peter Pan as the centre of his stage play entitled Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, which premiered on 27 December 1904 in London. Barrie later adapted and expanded the play's story line as a novel, published in 1911 as Peter and Wendy." Barrie based Peter Pan on his older brother who died before his 14th birthday in an ice skating accident. Barrie himself was a Scottish novelist and playwright most famous for creating Peter Pan. 

I found the history of the novel interesting because when my siblings and I were kids, we had a VHS tape of the stage production of Peter Pan, and we absolutely loved it. I think it's amusing that I saw Peter Pan through this medium before ever reading the novel, and, as it turns out, the stage show actually did come before the book.

I'm sure you're all somewhat acquainted with the story so I won't go into that, but I will say that the novel is just as pleasing and captivating as you might imagine, and I highly recommend it. I wanted to start the year off with a bit of whimsy and that's exactly what I got. Two enthusiastic thumbs up for Peter Pan.

Have you ever read Peter Pan? Have you seen the stage show? What do you think about never growing up?